Jun 3, 2013

The Connectify Conundrum

Let me start by telling you how I work. I had, in my possession, two laptops- a Dell, which served as my gaming laptop, with a core i5 processor and 1 GB graphics and an Arabian LG netbook running an Intel Atom (originally Mamma's) which served my programming needs. For some reason, the Ubuntu 13.04 installed on the netbook couldn't run my Reliance Netconnect+. Connectify came to the rescue (I really don't know how I had a full version installed in my laptop) and I would make my laptop a hotspot and run internet in both of them.

I would generally make a change in the netbook and check the changes in the web browser of my more powerful laptop (with a wider screen)- that is how I work in general.

My perfect gaming-programming setting was disrupted when the Dell attempted suicide. The problem was diagnosed as some kind of a system board failure, but couldn't be fixed. I stopped programming for a few days and when I had confirmation from the first computer repair shop that it couldn't be fixed, I just went to the nearest dealer and got myself a Sony Vaio (You might want to refer to this as to why I jumped ships from Dell to Sony).

It's a totally different thing that my new laptop (did I mention the back-lit keyboard yet?) has UEFI and installing Ubuntu through Wubi is literally impossible (Even adidas can't say- impossible is nothing!) Anyways, Ubuntu on my gaming machine is not so important (as for now, I would only be using it as a hotspot.)

I got Connectify Lite and that is when I realized that my Dell had the full version installed. Connectify refused to share my USB internet through the hotspot. That is what made me want to pull my hair out.

However, after talking to the Cranky Dude, we realised the solution was easy and we were looking at it the wrong way altogether! (he came up with this link and I came up with this; both essentially doing the same work)

All the people in my college use Connectify to connect their cellphones (and tabs and iPods and iPads and watches and what not) to the LAN power. At any time, if you check the wifi networks, you would find connections ranging from "Connectify-Nani" to "Connectify-DarthVader"! That is why, over the past year, I had come to think of "Wifi Hotspot" and "Connectify" as analogous terms.

The solution? Create an Ad Hoc network (preferably with a password, unless you want someone to finish your precious bandwidth) and share your network over it.

Note:

There is an issue with the ad-hocs though. They tend to disconnect the internet with their network after some time for some unknown reason. Also, if you run an ifconfig command on the client side to check the IP address, running it on the browser of the host doesn't really work (maybe it's the firewall playing spoilsport, but who knows?) So, I stopped trying and got myself Connectify Pro!

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